by community-syndication | Jul 3, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
That’s how I torture the BizTalk developer during the technical interview.
The interview is very intensive and takes 1-1.5 hour.
The main principle:
quick question – quick answer/demonstration.
The main goal:
range the main skills in all areas of the BizTalk generic development
General questions:
How does contender understand:
* the general architecture of the BizTalk:
= enumerate the main parts of the BizTalk system
= describe the main intentions of the BizTalk
* artifacts, terms (enumerate them):
= quick description
– application
– ports, groups, locations
– pipelines
– schemas
– maps
– orchestrations:
– shapes
– transactions:
– atomic
– long-running
– compensation
– exceptions
– persistent points
– assemblies
– helper .NET classes
– data bases, servers
– hosts, instances
– adapters, handlers
– subscribers, publishers
– parties
– EDI, AS2 system
– rules, vocabularies, policies
= now couple words more, what contender likes/doesn’t like in this artifact/tool. (Don’t laugh, it is a silly and VERY tough question.)
* what’s going on inside BizTalk
How develop with different parts of BizTalk:
= Describe creating the full-featured BizTalk application.
= create the thing, show what’s the most interesting inside the artifact and/or inside the tool
= quick description and couple words more, what contender likes/doesn’t like in this artifact/tool.
* VS, Source Safe
* Schema editor
– flat-files, EDI
* Mapper
– Xslt
* Orchestration Editor
* Business Rule Composer
* Tracking Profile Editor
Debugging the BizTalk Application:
= Describe debugging the full-featured BizTalk application.
* Enumerate tools:
* VS
* DebugView
* HAT, BTS Adm.Console
* NUnit, BizUnit, LoadGen
* Debugging artifacts:
– application
– ports
– pipelines
– schemas
– maps
– orchestrations
– helper .NET classes
– BR policy
Deploying the BizTalk application:
= Describe deploying the full-featured BizTalk application.
* BTSTask, BTSDeploy
* WMI scripts
* Wizards
Monitoring the BizTalk application:
2004 BTS: HAT, BizTalk Adm.Console, PerfMon
2006 BTS: HAT, BizTalk Adm.Console, PerfMon
BAM:
= Describe creating the tracking profile, activity, views.
Programming skills:
* bear route problem or similar
* bubble sort algorithm
* test-driven programming
* VS.NET tune-up
* script languages, utils
* SQL: database normalization, programming
Architecture skills:
* ways to achieve the goals:
= Say the ways to track the work times of the stages
* standard applications:
– workflow with several messages
– correlation
– convoys: parallel; sequential unified; sequential non unified
– instance vs. active subscription
– custom correlation
– FIFO
– BizTalk to/from SQL app:
– send data to SQL
– receive data from SQL
– query SQL data
– where to validate data?
– schemas, ports
– BizTalk to/from WS/HTTP apps
– SOAP ports, artifacts, wizards
* error handling in the BizTalk applications
= what else inside the BizTalk set tools the contender used and dig up those areas.
by community-syndication | Jul 3, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
I’m doing some work with a customer this week who had an excessively large staticstateinfo table (more than 60,000 rows) in their BizTalk Message Box. The table contains static Orchestration information, to be loaded at runtime, it has a row for
each deployed orchestration. While the size of the table posed no immediate concerns the customer wanted to understand why the table grows bigger and how they could stop the growth.
The reason this customer had such a large number of rows is because they had several hundred Orchestrations deployed to their environment, but they ALSO had over 100 versions of each of these Orchestrations deployed to their environment. These Orchestrations were no longer used. Because BizTalk only removes the information in the static state info table when the Orchestration version is actually removed from the group, their table was getting bigger and bigger and bigger….
Versioning of your Orchestrations is a very common and often required scenario, when implementing this you should ensure that once a version is no longer used or required it is removed from the system. Doing this will decrease the size of the static state info table and also reduce the number of artifacts you have to manage within BizTalk. Reducing the number of artifacts you have to manage makes administrating your system easier (especially in BizTalk 2004 where there is no ‘application’ grouping). Therefore please make sure you consider how and when you are going to perform this undeployment right from the moment you decide to implement versioning of your Orchestrations.
by community-syndication | Jul 2, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Thanks to all the people who attended to my Pragmatic SOA Interoperability session at SOAWorld. The slide deck can be downloaded here . I will be uploading the demos during the next days. Also, SOAWorld Magazine (ex Web Services Journal) just published…(read more)
by community-syndication | Jul 2, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Yeah, its official now. I have received the 2007 Microsoft MVP award for BizTalk Server. It’s been a really fun year blogging, writing white paper, launching BizTalk 24 * 7 and just generally getting more involved in the community.
I feel proud and honored to be part of the select few that Microsoft recognizes as community leaders. I’ll take this opportunity to thank each and everyone who nominated me for this award behind the scene.
Nandri!
Saravana
by community-syndication | Jul 2, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
As many of you know, Jon Flanders recently joined us here at Pluralsight. In just a couple of weeks Jon is going to be delivering our first public offering of the BizTalk R2 class. If I weren’t already committed, I’d be at this course as Jon has some great material on the new features in the upcoming R2 release including the integration with WCF / WF and all the cool RFID stuff. Be sure to check it out if you are using or plan to use R2.
by Richard | Jul 2, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
I’ve just found out that I get to go to TechEd in November! I haven’t been there before. I’ve been to a lot of conferences but not the Microsoft conference. Do I have to say that I’m looking forward to it?
If you’re going and feel like meeting up for a BizTalk lunch, dinner or whatever don’t hesitate to drop me an e-mail.
by community-syndication | Jul 2, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
I’ve just found out that I get to go to TechEd in November! I haven’t been there before. I’ve been to a lot of conferences but not the Microsoft conference. Do I have to say that I’m looking forward to it?
If you’re going and feel like meeting up for a BizTalk lunch, dinner or whatever […]
by community-syndication | Jul 1, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
A while ago I taught a Brown Bag event for Microsoft about the Cross Referencing I have been blogging about recently.
You can view the presentation here. I will be the first one to admit, it was not that good, there were some technical difficulties in getting it up and running and then my tweaking the night before caused me some on-air glitches.
Anyway – not the best presentation, but I got through it. I gave the same presentation at the Southern California Code Campand it went much better.
by community-syndication | Jul 1, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
I’ve
been visiting Arkansas this weekend, but while reviewing my spam folder I noticed
something got caught that shouldn’t have. Specifically the email that informed
me I’ve been selected as an MVP for BizTalk Server. I’m honored, and appreciate
the support of everyone who has made this possible by opening their groups to me to
speak.
by community-syndication | Jul 1, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Here is the next installment of the Sydney User Group meeting on July 4, 2007.
Dear Chris,
Next Sydney BizTalk User Group is meeting on 6pm July 4th at Microsoft North Ryde
Examine Windows Workflow talking to BizTalk R2 and BizTalk Labs.
Firstly a BIG thanks to those that enjoyed the exam cram we did last month (we had to order additional pizza!) and I’ve since heard that several of you have sat and passed the EXAM!!! Well done!!
With R2 just around the corner……I decided to tackle the Windows Workflow(WF) question.
The message is usually BTS vs WF, never BTS AND WF.
We’ll cover:
1. Workflow 101 (you should be able to bring your manager along to this one J)
2. Hosting Workflow’s within BizTalk with the new BizTalk extensions for WF SDK
3. BizTalk Labs – life after R2….and where we are heading…..
Meeting details:
When: July 4th Food at 6pm, kick off 6.30pm. Finish up around 8pm.
Where: Microsoft
1 Epping Road
Riverside Corporate Park
North Ryde NSW 2113 Australia. (parking available)
WF Session Focus Details:
1. First up we will look at the fundamentals of Workflow; what makes them run; communications; and how do we host them.
(WF is the technology that is brightly coloured in VS.NET and comes with .NET 3.0) – you could even workflow your toaster if you wanted to.
2. Next – we’ll take a Workflow and use WCF under the covers to act as the communication medium between BTS R2 & WF. Very nice.
So now in BTS R2 we can host WF (through a small ’Orchestration wrapper’) meaning that when BTS persists, WF does too – WF is now running inside BTSNTSvc.exe.
(cross off the list – ’find a place for my WF’s to live’)
3. Thirdly – Imagine being able to call our creation from anywhere and behind umpteen firewalls between caller/sender…..enter into the ring
BizTalk Labs!!! Very exciting – labs.BizTalk.net.
(what communications do you think we use…….WCF……hmmm….seems to be a common thread here!)
So it’s a night on WF/R2 wrapped up in WCF – wow what a great set of technologies!!!!
See you there and let me know your coming
Mick Badran.
p.s. I’ve fallen in love with Microsoft Surface…….wow!!!
http://sydbiz.org
(my second ever word merge!!!)
